books
WHEN THERE WAS NO AID: WAR AND PEACE IN SOMALILAND
Winner of the 2020 Australian Political Science Association (AusPSA) Crisp Prize for the best scholarly political science monograph (2018-20) and listed as one of Australian Book Review’s ‘Books of the Year’ 2020 and Foreign Affairs ‘Best Books of Year 2020’.
Sarah’s most recent book, When There Was No Aid: War and Peace in Somaliland (Cornell University Press, March 2020), is concerned with the place of war in establishing and maintaining peace and civil order in a place that was unusually isolated from the international system during its foundational years. It challenges one of the most engrained presumptions about violence and poverty in the global South: that external intervention by actors in the global North is self-evidently useful in ending them.
“ Sarah Phillips’s book is a remarkable study that is an example of some of the very finest research and scholarship to emerge from political science and international relations in recent years. Theoretically sophisticated, beautifully written and drawing on in-depth and sustained fieldwork conducted over many years, Phillips draws on an impressive array of literature to challenge longstanding presumptions about violence and poverty in the global South… Phillips’s argument is marshalled into an extremely readable and accessible text, making this book appealing to both experts and non-experts alike. Already receiving well justified praise and a wide readership, When There Was No Aid: War and Peace in Somaliland, is destined to become a landmark text in the fields of development, international affairs, peace, conflict and security studies.”
“Phillips’s nuanced and provocative study is the most compelling account yet of Somaliland’s recent history”
“When There Was No Aid is the result of extensive fieldwork. Phillips… has drawn on this impressive research alongside other scholarly literature to produce a compelling account of Somaliland’s path to peace. While it is evidently written with an academic audience in mind – the book is grounded in theory and has an exhaustive reference list – When There Was No Aid is lively and accessible… Phillips’s most original contribution comes through her observation that stability has been maintained largely through words rather than actions.”
“The book’s short conclusion, entitled ‘why aid matters less than we think’, poses bracing reflections for development practitioners and scholars... Such a book could have struck the high-handed tone of a polemic. It doesn’t, and that owes to its careful and polished style and also the occasions where the author inserts herself into the narrative. Phillips emerges as curious, respectful and humble, thanking her interlocutors for answering so generously questions other researchers have asked before.”
“When There Was No Aid is a lucid and compelling account of Somaliland’s political development and its remarkable ability to maintain peace discursively by emphasising the omnipresent threat of a return to war and the extremely limited ability of state institutions to prevent that.”
“This remarkable study of a non-state upends dominant scholarly and policy discourses about statehood, conflict, peace, development, and international interventions... Phillips skillfully engages the relevant literature and methodological issues, and employs a creative multimethod approach to capture both the uniqueness of Somaliland and its value for comparative analysis and political theory… Highly recommended.”
Yemen and The Politics of Permanent Crisis
The Adelphi Series, 2011, Listen to Sarah discuss the book at its launch.
“This book should be on the desks of anyone studying Yemeni politics or US foreign policy in the Arabian Peninsula.”
Sarah’s second book, Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, analyses the dynamics of Yemen’s informal institutions amid rapid political and social change, and the role that Western donors and other external actors (particularly Saudi Arabia) played in facilitating the country’s crisis.
Drawing on research carried out on the ground in Yemen, this Adelphi examines the shadowy structures that govern political life and sustain a network of social elites predisposed against any far-reaching systemic reform. It looks behind the scenes at the regime's opaque internal politics, at its entrenched patronage system and at the 'rules of the game' that will shape the behaviour of the post-Saleh rulers, to offer insights for how the West may better engage within that game.
“Sarah Phillipsʼ timely new book, while succinct, provides considerable insight into the complex nature of internal Yemeni politics, and especially the motivations of its beleaguered president. Most importantly, however, it convincingly argues that the type of support provided by outside donors exacerbate the crisis rather than address the causes of tension and strife… Phillips’ contribution is invaluable.”
Yemen's Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective: Patronage and Pluralized Authoritarianism
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008
“Phillips’ masterful study forges a path for all those readers seeking clarity amidst the complexity of Yemeni politics.”
Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective examines the nature of changes to Yemen's power structures, political dynamics and institutions since the intention to democratize was announced in 1990. Critiquing the ‘democratic transitions’ literature, this book explores the ways in which opposition groups and non-state actors (often inadvertently) act in support of the state actors and structures they purport to challenge.
“In this marvellously nuanced work, Sarah Phillips is enlightening on both Middle Eastern politics and the constraints generally on democratisation… This is precisely the kind of study we need in order to understand the prospects for democratic transition in the Middle East, and beyond.”